A Mete-Analysis of "My Family History"

Through writing subsequent drafts of "My Family History," I
notice that I make certain mistakes with some regularity. The
most common ones are the use of slang, improper grammar, improper
syntax, and the occasional omission of words and phrases. Yet my
writing is also characterized by a few strengths. For example, I
do not use redundant language (I should note that since this
essay follows a strict chronology, it was easier for me not to
write any repetitive and redundant sentences). I learned how to
fix my mistakes and tried not to make them again.

In my first draft, I made some grammatical mistakes and
some syntactical errors. For example, the last sentence of the
second paragraph initially read "My mother would sometimes cry
and even think of separation, but she couldn't because the new
life she had inside her," I changed this sentence to, "My mother
would sometimes cry and even think of separation, but she
couldn't because of the new life she had inside of her." The
reason why I added the preposition "of" between the words
"because" and "the" was because "of" tells where the new life is
taking place. The sentence is clearer in its second iteration
with the addition of the word "of" and easier to
understand.

To improve the clarity of my sentences (syntax), I actually
reworded the sentences and made them more detailed. For example,
the third sentence of the second paragraph read "Seems like a
great life, but that was only from the book cover." I was trying
to say that my parents' life together seemed so happy and
perfect, but that this was only what an outside observer would
think. I then changed the sentence to, "From the outside, that
life appeared to be ideal. But their marriage was actually very
difficult." The first version of the sentence wasn't easy to
comprehend, but the second version explains what their life was
like at that time. Another sentence that exemplifies improper
syntax use is, "The amazing thing was not only did I survive the
high chance of death, but that I held on to my umbilical cord so
tight (during my mother's pregnancy) that after it was cut by the
doctor the remaining nub stayed connected to my body for ten days
versus the usual one week as is the case for most kids." I
changed the sentence to, "The amazing thing was not that I had
survived, but that I had held on to my umbilical cord so tight in
my mother's womb that part of it remained attached to my belly
for ten days after birth versus the usual one week for most
kids." The second version of the sentence now identifies more
clearly for my readers where and what the umbilical cord
was.

Now that I had added another three pages to my document, I
knew that there were further corrections I would have to make to
my paper. In this paper, the most common mistake I made was the
use of slang. This made my paper less clear and hard to
understand. To fix this problem, I simply reworded the sentences.
For example, I initially wrote in one paragraph, "I believe our
youth group is getting tighter and tighter every moment." I
changed the language of this sentence to, "I believe the people
in our youth group are getting closer and closer every month."
The first sentence was a bit strange because I used the word
"tight", which is a slang word that means, or indicates,
"close-relationship." Another example of imprecise word use is
the phrase "Things started to get better and better." Because the
word "thing" is a vague word, I eliminated the vagueness by
rewording the sentence and explaining what the "thing" was. I
substituted the phrase, "Life got better and better", for the
word "it", which also explains why I use the word "life" so often
in this document.

In addiction to syntactical mistakes, I also noticed
several grammatical mistakes. For example, I wrote "So to cool
off, in September 1999, my family, the pastor's family, and some
other church family members decided to go on a cross country trip
around America via Boston, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona (Grand
Canyon/Los Vegas) and Irvine California." There were a lot of
recurrent grammar mistakes (commas) in this sentence. I changed
the sentence to, "So to relax, in September 1999, my family, the
pastor's family, and some other church family members decided to
go on a cross country trip around America, visiting Boston,
Tennessee, Texas, Arizona (Grand Canyon/Los Vegas), and Irvine,
California." By adding commas after the name of each state, it is
now easier for the reader to know where I went. Another simple
mistake that I made in my first draft was to use present tense
verbs, when I should have used past tense verbs. For example,
"And that baby is me" to, "And that baby was me." I noticed that
I had to use the correct verb tenses in order for my reader to
understand what is going on in the document.

On my second draft, I found another recurrent mistake and
that was the occasional omission of words and phrases. For
example, the sentence "My father got an offer at a better job in
Seoul..." This sentence was changed to, "But after only one year
in Irvine, father received a better job offer in Seoul…" The
second version of the sentence is much clear because more detail
was added. By adding the phrase "But after only one year in
Irvine" tells exactly when my father got a better job offer. Also
by adding the phrase "received a better job" than "got an" and
"at a better job" makes the two phrases into one, making it
shorter and brief. Another example would be, "This was a praise
because my parents wanted three children…" This sentence was
changed to, "This was a cause for praise because my parents
wanted three children…" By adding "cause for" between "a" and
"praise" made it clear what the cause was that made my parents
praise.

Again in my paper, I noticed that lack clarity was a
constant mistake that I had been making. For example, I wrote "My
father would always fight with my mother because of the stress at
work." In this sentence, the reason why my parents fought wasn't
made clear enough. So I subsequently changed the sentence to, "My
parents didn't have a good relationship because my father loved
his job more than his wife." The first sentence was vague because
it didn't explain clearly why my father and my mother fought. But
the corrected version of the sentence explains why my parents
didn't have a good relationship. Although this draft had more
mistakes, it helped me be more aware of recurrent mistakes on my
last draft.

In my last draft, I had hardly anything to correct because
I had already revised the paper twice. The only mistake that I
made was another grammar mistake. For example, I wrote "My
father, a business man, and my mother, a loving beautiful young
woman, married..." This sentence was later changed to, "My
father, a business man, and my mother, a loving, beautiful young
woman, married..." Notice how I put the comma next to the word
"loving" because I am listing the adjectives that describe my
mother. By adding the comma next to loving, it tells that my
mother is a loving person.

Throughout writing my drafts, I noticed that thinking of
writing as a process and not as a product really helps in
writing. Writing one paper a day helped me to notice the common
mistakes and habits. As I noticed the mistakes and, I tried to
avoid them in the next draft. Writing portions of the essay also
gave me a better start and finish to my drafts. It saved me time
and of course gave me less stress than procrastinating. While
writing my drafts, I noticed that if I want to improve the
quality of my writing, I would have to improve slowly and know
that writing is not a product, but a process.